Dr. Marvin Wachman (1917-2007) was a great advocate for educating young people. In a distinguished academic career, he served as president of both Temple University and Lincoln University and led the Foreign Policy Research Institute as president from 1983 to 1989. Throughout his life, he remained a passionate believer that “you never stop learning.”
Established in 1990, the Wachman Center is dedicated to improving international and civic literacy for high school teachers and high school students.

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Two weeks ago, Chinese President Xi Jinping attended a nuclear security cooperation summit in Washington. At the same time, China has been busily preparing its next generation of nuclear weapons. It has made steady progress on its new DF-41 intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM). Last December, China conducted two more tests on the missile, including one that confirmed the DF-41’s ability to be launched from a mobile platform. The DF-41 will be China’s first solid-fueled missile with the range to reach the entire continental United States. The new missile’s range will likely exceed that of China’s older liquid-fueled DF-5 (or CSS-4 according to its NATO designation) ICBM. As a mobile, solid-fueled missile, the DF-41 will be hard to track and able to quickly launch, improving China’s nuclear deterrent. Some believe that China might deploy the DF-41 as early as this year.[1]

China has also been developing a sea-based ICBM, the JL-2. Though the JL-2 has a shorter range than the DF-41, China has built four Jin-class nuclear-powered ballistic missile submarines to carry JL-2 missiles closer to their targets. While those submarines are unlikely for the moment to venture far from their base at Yalong Bay on Hainan Island, American officials confirmed that one of them conducted a patrol late last year. [2] Whether or not JL-2 missiles were on board the submarine is unknown. But if they were, that would make the JL-2 even more elusive than the DF-41, again strengthening China’s nuclear deterrent.

Chinese Ballistic Missile Ranges

While China’s nuclear arsenal is small when compared to those of Russia or the United States, there is little doubt as to its enduring importance to Beijing. That much is clear in the special status its nuclear weapons program has held over the last half century. As part of its wide-ranging military reorganization early this year, Beijing elevated its land-based nuclear forces, once a component of the army, to a full-fledged service on par with the army called the Rocket Force.

Many Chinese analysts believe that by creating a more robust nuclear retaliatory capability they can ensure that no country would threaten China with nuclear coercion should a crisis erupt over one of its “core interests,” like Taiwan. As one Chinese official once famously quipped in the 1990s, the United States would never trade “Los Angeles for Taipei.” Hence, China has opposed any proposal that might blunt the effectiveness of its nuclear missiles, even indirect ones, like America’s recent effort to deploy its Theater High-Altitude Air Defense system to protect South Korea and Japan from a possible North Korean missile attack. While Beijing may contend that a state of mutual vulnerability would lead to a more stable security environment between China and the United States, it also complicates a key feature of U.S. alliances in the Asia-Pacific.

Since the Cold War, U.S. allies, like Australia, Japan, and South Korea, have enjoyed what is called “extended deterrence”—a security guarantee that the United States would be willing to use its nuclear forces to deter aggression against them. But that guarantee is dependent on the credibility of the United States to act. Naturally, the United States is more likely to act if potential adversaries are unable to retaliate against it. Once fully operational, China’s new missiles, which can directly threaten the United States, will complicate the credibility of America’s security guarantee to its allies, weakening extended deterrence.

Already American credibility to act has been questioned over the last half decade, due to the Obama administration’s repeated hesitancy in foreign crises. The reliability of America’s security commitments concerns many of its allies in the Asia-Pacific, as China’s military capabilities continue to grow. That has led some U.S. allies to reevaluate their own military postures. Japan has even taken steps to change its constitution to enable its military to take on a more “normal” role to safeguard Japanese interests in the region.

Australia has begun to do the same. Since the early 2000s, several Australian policymakers have argued for a more self-reliant defense. In its 2009 defense planning document Australia stated “in terms of military power… we must have the capacity to act independently where we have unique strategic interests at stake.”[3] Then, its defense white paper this year, Australia indicated that it could only assume American military dominance in the Asia-Pacific for the next two decades, rather than for the “foreseeable future” as it had in the past. [4] As a result, Australia is pressing ahead with a defense review that will culminate in the purchase of a raft of new military hardware. Australia is now considering the purchase of Japanese submarines for its navy. A few Australian analysts have even begun to openly wonder whether nuclear weapons should in Australia’s future.

Some American policymakers have welcomed the change that weaker extended deterrence has brought. Long-time issues of burden-sharing have eased. They believe that a web of militarily stronger allies can deter China from upsetting Asia’s regional order and do so at a lower cost to the United States. If they are correct, it may usher in a new era of stability. But it also means that the United States will be less able to manage crises in Asia-Pacific, as regional countries will have greater ability to act without it. Should American allies do so, they could draw the United States into a crisis that it would have rather avoided. For those who are concerned about that prospect, it provides an added incentive to pursue ever stronger anti-ballistic missile defenses.

The enactment of Japan’s new national security bills was a long time in the making. The bills, already passed by the lower house of the Japanese Diet in July, were approved by its upper house last week. But ever since Shinzō Abe became Japan’s prime minister in 2012, he had sought legislation that would enable Japan to engage in “collective self-defense,” the ability to aid friendly countries under attack. While that may seem routine in most countries, it has been anything but in Japan. Many were unhappy with the legislation’s passage. Those who opposed it feared that it would lead the country into war; and even some of those who supported it grumbled that it did not go far enough to make Japan a truly “normal” country, one where the use of force is considered as a legitimate tool of international politics.

Unsurprisingly, China was quick to condemn the legislation’s passage. China’s Ministry of National Defense declared that Japan’s new security laws ran “counter to the trend of the times that upholds peace, development and cooperation.” The ministry chastised “Japan’s war mentality, its reinforcement of military alliances and attempts to send more troops abroad.” Chinese media was less charitable. Xinhua carried the headlines: “China Voice: Is Japan bound up to battle chariot?” and “News Analysis: Japan’s pacifist ideals stripped as Abe steps closer to resurrecting old war machine.” One commentator at The People’s Daily blamed the “unyielding spirit of militarism” of Japanese leaders who were “breaking [Japan’s] pacifist promise and getting ready to send its troops to battles again.”[1]

Of course, China rarely passes up an opportunity to remind Japan of its imperial aggression. Thirty-six years of Japanese economic aid to China—now nearly $1.2 billion per year—has yet to restrain its reflex. In part, that is because the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) has often used anti-Japanese sentiment to buttress its own political legitimacy. (Only recently did the CCP even credit its longtime Chinese rival, the Kuomintang on Taiwan, for its contribution—arguably larger than the CCP’s—to resisting Japan in World War II.)

That it took so long for Japan to pass this sort of legislation is a testament to the strength of Japan’s postwar pacifist sentiment. While militarist elements may still lurk in Japan, most Japanese are decidedly uncomfortable with the use of force in international politics. That was clear during Japan’s negotiations with Russia over the Northern Territories (or southern Kuril Islands in Russia) in the 1990s. Though Japan had already begun its long economic stagnation, its military and political might was still near its peak. In contrast, Russia, following the fall of the Soviet Union, was at its nadir. Things were so bad in the Russian Far East that it was questionable whether Moscow could provide enough food or heat for its population on Sakhalin Island, let alone defend it.

Yet, Japan did not try to use its military or political capital to pressure Russia into a settlement. Rather, Japan solely relied on the persuasive power of its economic assistance. That tactic ultimately came to nothing. After Russia’s economy recovered, Japan’s window of opportunity to settle the dispute on favorable terms closed. Today, Russian leaders act without concern over Japanese reaction. They cavalierly flout Japanese interests. This year, a series of senior Russian officials visited the four disputed islands, despite repeated protests from Tokyo. Russian Prime Minister Dmitry even toured one of them in August. While there, he underlined that the Kuril Islands “are part of Russia… That is how it is and how it will be.”[2]

Japan’s self-imposed limitation on its use of force has also impacted its ability to secure its place in a changing East Asian geopolitical environment. China’s economic rise has drawn other Asian countries closer to its orbit, while its seemingly relentless military rise has upset the regional balance of power. Without the ability to form true security partnerships, Japan has risked becoming isolated. Hence, Abe has eagerly cultivated new political and economic ties across the Asia-Pacific, from Australia and India to the countries of Southeast Asia. Japan has certainly become more sensitive to changes in Asia’s geopolitical balance. Last year, after Thailand’s relations with the United States soured, offering China an opening, Tokyo leapt into the breach with pledges of economic engagement with Bangkok.

Surely, the most immediate beneficiary of Japan’s new security laws is the United States. For the past half century, the United States has borne the entire security burden of the alliance between the two countries—if Japan is attacked, the United States is obligated to defend Japan; but if the United States is attacked, Japan has no such reciprocal obligation. Even during the Cold War, that uneven arrangement rankled some Americans. To make it more equitable, Japan accepted the lion’s share of the financial burden to host American forces in Japan. But with the end of the Cold War and the withdrawal of a substantial portion of American forces from Japan (to Guam and elsewhere), the relationship was about to tilt again. Thus, it was hardly surprising that Washington welcomed the legislation’s passage.

But beyond the United States, the legislation also enables Japan to more effectively cooperate with other countries on security matters. If Japan’s relationships with Australia, India, the Philippines, and recently Vietnam mature into security partnerships, those countries can now count on Japan as a full partner. In fact, in the days before the upper house vote on the national security bills, Abe met with Vietnam’s communist party secretary to discuss stronger security ties, in light of Vietnam’s dispute with China in the South China Sea. Abe pledged more patrol boats for Vietnam. Such promises is partly what worries Japanese opponents of the bills. Getting Japan entangled in the disputes of other countries could pull it into a conflict, perhaps with China. On the other hand, the possibility of facing a regional network of security partners might restrain China’s aggressiveness. After all, China’s own economic prosperity (tenuous as it has become this year) requires peace and stability.

Even with the enactment of its new national security bills, Japan seems unlikely to seek the active use of military force far from home. After all, Japan’s debt-laden government is in no position to rapidly expand its self-defense forces without hurting its still-weak economy. Moreover, the conditions under which Japan can use force to support American expeditionary efforts abroad are still narrowly circumscribed. The new legislation may be a step toward a Japan that is more comfortable with the idea of the use of force. But the road to an actual use of force remains a long one. Ironically, China may be the one country that could propel Japan faster down that road.

On July 1, Japanese Prime Minister Shinzō Abe announced that his cabinet approved a resolution to reinterpret Article Nine of Japan’s 67-year old constitution. That article, which stipulates that Japan would forever renounce war as a sovereign right, effectively forbids its military from coming to the aid of allies under attack or, in other words, engaging in what it calls “collective self-defense.” The new cabinet resolution would remove that restriction. It would also relax the limits on Japan’s activities in United Nations peacekeeping operations and incidents short of war. While most outsiders may view the reinterpretation as modest, many Chinese and some South Koreans worry that the change will lead to a more aggressive Japan. Japanese citizens also worry, but for a different reason. They worry that Japan could be more easily drawn into conflicts at the behest of its allies, especially the United States.

Abe has had to work hard to get this far. He had to win over his governing coalition partner, the New Komeito Party. (New Komeito’s consent may still earn the party a backlash from its pacifist supporters.) Even now, Abe still faces a full debate in Japan’s Diet before he can make amendments to existing laws that will be needed to implement his cabinet’s decision. That is Abe’s next hurdle.

But it is a hurdle that Japan will have to overcome, if it wants to not only strengthen its existing security relationship with the United States, but also build new ones with other countries. Without the ability to take part in collective self-defense, Japan can offer its security partners little more than moral support. Typically allies expect more than that. Since Japan, as Abe is keen to stress, sits an in increasingly volatile region, it needs new allies. To secure them, it is useful for Japan to be able to engage in collective self-defense, which is one of the main reasons why Abe has pushed to have Article Nine reinterpreted.

Not surprisingly, the reinterpretation pleased Japan’s ally, the United States, which has long borne the brunt of the defense burden in their security relationship. As one senior American official put it, Japan’s constitutional reinterpretation merely “[gets] Japan up to a normal baseline of operations in collective self-defense.”[1] Under its new guidelines, Japan’s military would have permission to shoot down a North Korean missile heading for the United States or defend American ships under attack in the waters near Japan.

Abe has been working toward this goal ever since his governing coalition’s electoral victory in December 2012. He has often spoken about how China’s unrelenting assertiveness in the East and South China Seas has raised new concerns in Japan and across the region. And so, Abe has moved to establish new bilateral security ties with other countries that face similar pressures from China, like the Philippines and Vietnam. Despite their own wartime experiences with Japanese occupation, both countries have welcomed the new ties. When Philippine President Benigno Aquino III visited Japan in June 2014, he praised Abe’s efforts to revise Japan’s constitution. “Nations of goodwill can only benefit if the Japanese government is empowered to assist others,” he argued.[2] Similarly, Vietnam has supported stronger ties with Japan, signing an agreement to establish an “extensive strategic partnership” in March 2014. In return, Japan has offered both countries patrol boats to help them better monitor their maritime claims.

Australia has become the latest country to receive Japan’s overtures. And it too has reciprocated. In fact, this week Abe is visiting Canberra, where the two countries signed economic partnership pact as well as an agreement on military equipment and technology transfers. Abe also addressed a joint session of Australia’s parliament and attended a meeting of its national security committee. Though Australia is a country whose economy has become closely linked to China, it is also increasingly wary of what China’s rise might mean for the region. Its 2009 strategic defense white paper outlined a need for the country to build a new fleet of a dozen advanced diesel-electric submarines.[3] On the other hand, Japan is a country with a long history of building such vessels, the latest of which are its Sōryū-class submarines that are equipped with ultra-quiet air-independent propulsion. After Abe relaxed Japan’s arms export controls in April 2014, the two countries accelerated talks over how Australia could acquire certain defense technologies (and possibly entire submarines) from Japan. If such acquisitions are eventually made, they would further cement Australia as a true security partner with Japan.

What has been particularly impressive is the ease with which Japan has developed its new security relationships, all of which were formed in the last year. (See map.) A few of these intersect with the many bilateral security ties the United States maintains in the region, whether they are formal treaties (blue) or simply close relationships (green).

Japan is not alone. Vietnam has extended its search for friends to India and Russia and recently took the step of cooperating with the Philippines, a rival claimant in the South China Sea. Meanwhile, the Philippines has strengthened its alliance with the United States through a new security pact, the Enhanced Defense Cooperation Agreement (formerly known as Increased Rotational Presence). Other Southeast Asian countries have begun to take precautions too. Even historically quiescent Indonesia has moved to reaffirm its claim to the exclusive economic zone around the Natuna Islands, a portion of which overlaps China’s South China Sea claim. Indeed, as long as China forcefully presses its maritime claims and Abe can move Japan towards collective self-defense, Tokyo may find more Asia-Pacific countries receptive to its offer of new security relationships.

[1] Martin Fackler and David E. Sanger, “Japan Announces a Military Shift to Thwart China,” New York Times, Jul. 2, 2014, p. A1.

On Sunday, July 21, the Japanese electorate propelled Prime Minister Shinzō Abe’s Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) (together with its partner, the New Komeito Party) to the majority in Japan Diet’s House of Councillors (or upper house). The victory ends the parliamentary impasse, in which the LDP controlled the lower house and its opponents the upper house. The biggest issues of the election were Abe’s “three arrow” economic policies and how he hopes to restore Japan’s national power grid. But many also saw the election as a referendum on Abe’s plans to boost Japan’s self-defense forces and possibly even amend Article Nine of the country’s constitution, which renounces the threat or use of force to settle international disputes and prohibits Japan from establishing formal armed forces.

Though the victory was not large enough to immediately pass a constitutional amendment, it has raised concerns among those Japanese who oppose any revision to Article Nine. They worry that Japan could experience a resurgence of its pre-World War II militarism or, at the very least, could be pulled into foreign conflicts by its main ally, the United States. Others, however, are open to amending the constitution; they believe the document, largely written by American lawyers in the occupation authority, should better reflect the needs and will of the Japanese people. And an increasing number wonder whether the real question is not why Japan should consider amending its constitution, but rather why it has not already done so? Many young Japanese (like many young Germans) wonder how long their country must repent for and be constrained by the sins committed by their forbearers nearly 70 years ago. They would like Japan to become, in Abe’s words, an “ordinary country.”

Of course, the debate within Japan has not occurred in isolation. There have been calls from abroad for Japan to better meet its international security obligations as a major developed country. After the Persian Gulf Conflict in 1991, some (mainly Americans) found fault with Japan’s contribution to the Coalition war effort, which came largely came in the form of dollars (over $10 billion of them), rather than soldiers. By the early 2000s, Japan had begun to send small military detachments overseas, usually in clearly defensive, humanitarian, or peacekeeping roles. Its ground forces were deployed to Iraq as part of the reconstruction effort after 2003 and its maritime forces escorted allied shipping through the Indian Ocean. And since its inception, Japanese warships have participated in the multinational anti-piracy patrol in the Gulf of Aden.

But it has been Japan’s increasingly worrisome security environment over the last several years that has really spurred many Japanese to reexamine the role of their self-defense forces and seriously consider changes to Article Nine for the first time. North Korea’s unusually prolonged saber rattling this past spring only served to underscore their heightened sense of insecurity. Despite Japan’s alliance with the United States and much bandied-about American pivot to Asia, other powers in the region seem bent on exploiting Japan’s pacifism. Since the mid-2000s, Japan has closely monitored a rise in Russian incursions into Japanese airspace as well as a steady increase in the number of Chinese warships that pass near its southern islands and, in some provocative cases, circumnavigate Japan’s home islands. And, of course, over the last year tensions between China and Japan have risen as a result of their territorial dispute in the East China Sea, which includes the sovereignty over the Senkaku (Diaoyu) Islands. Indeed, in the week prior to Sunday’s election, China began drilling for oil in a disputed area of the East China Sea, prompting Japan to dispatch a geologic survey ship.

Even so, any overhaul of Japan’s self-defense forces will take time. It took almost a decade for Japan’s annual defense white paper to even acknowledge that a rising China presented new challenges, presumably because Tokyo wanted to reduce the potential for Chinese backlash against Japanese commercial interests in China. Following the Cold War, far more Japanese have been concerned about reviving their national economy rather than their national security. Most believed that the qualitative superiority of Japan’s self-defense forces was sufficient to ensure their safety. But after years of under investment, together with China’s rapid military modernization and Russia’s revival, Japan has seen its qualitative margin eroded. And given the recent behavior of its neighbors, a growing number of Japanese feel that more attention must be given to national defense, either with or without an amendment to Article Nine. The Japanese media frequently reports on the strains that constant patrolling of disputed airspace and waters have put on Japan’s self-defense forces and coast guard. At a practical level, there is much to do, even apart from new hardware procurement—from making Japan’s self-defense forces work together more jointly to deciding how (and under what circumstances) they would be used. If tangible progress is made, then the election will have proven itself to be a turning point for Japanese national security.

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